John Le Gay Brereton
John Le Gay Brereton (2 September 1871 - 2 February 1933) was an Australian poet, literary critic, and Professor of English at the University of Sydney. He was the first president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers when it was formed in Sydney in 1928. Life Youth Brereton was born in Sydney, the fifth son of John Le Gay Brereton (1827-1886), a well-known Sydney physician who published five volumes of verse between 1857 and 1887, and his wife Mary, née Tongue. His parents had travelled on the Dover Castle from England, arriving in Melbourne on 25 July 1859 and then moved to Sydney. The younger Brereton was educated at Sydney Grammar School from 1881. In 1886, when he was 15, his father died. He attended the University of Sydney, where he was an editor of the student magazine, Hermes, and from which he graduated with a B.A. in English in 1894 reading English under Professor Sir Mungo MacCallum. He was edit of Hermes, the student magazine and became the chief librarian there in 1915.John Le Gay Brereton (1871-1933), Australian Poetry Library, Web, Mar. 3, 2012. Career Brereton had several occupations and continued his writing, in 1896 he published Perdita, A Sonnet Record, and The Song of Brotherhood and Other Verses. These were followed in 1897 by Sweetheart Mine: Lyrics of Love and Friendship and by Landlopers in (1899), mostly prose, based on a walking tour with Dowell Philip O'Reilly. The verse in Brereton's earlier volumes were pleasant but not very distinguished, however Sea and Sky (1908), contained stronger work. In 1909 his volume Elizabethan Drama Notes and Studies proclaimed him a scholar of unusual ability and knowledge, and his studies in this period stimulated him to write his one-act play in blank verse Tomorrow A Dramatic Sketch of the Character and Environment of Robert Greene. This is possibly the best Australian poetical play of its period, and has the merit belonging to comparatively few Australian plays that it is actable. World War I led to Brereton producing a slender volume of verse published in 1919, The Burning Marl, dedicated to "All who have fought nobly". In 1921 he was appointed professor of English literature at the University of Sydney. Brereton produced a volume of poems, Swags Up (1928), and a collection of his prose articles and stories was published under the title of Knocking Round (1930). The sketches of Henry Lawson and Dowell O'Reilly are of particular interest. His edition of Lust's Dominion was sent to the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1914 but was thought lost in the German invasion; it was finally published there in 1931. So Long, Mick! a short one-act play in prose, was also published in 1931. Brereton contributed many letters and poems on diverse subjects to the Sydney Morning Herald, often under the pseudonym 'Basil Garstang'. Brereton died suddenly on 2 February 1933 near Tamworth, New South Wales while on a caravan tour. He had married in 1900 Winifred Odd, who survived him with a daughter and four sons. Recognition As an Elizabethan scholar, his only rival in Australia in his day was Ernest Henry Clark Oliphant. His prose work was interesting and sensitive, and the best of his verse gives him an assured place among Australian poets. He was entirely unselfish and did much for Lawson when he was most in need of friends. He was a close friend of and collaborator with Henry Lawson (whom he met in late 1894 through Mary Cameron, later Dame Mary Gilmore), and Christopher Brennan. For at least part of his life, he was a disciple of Annie Besant. Publications Poetry * The Song of Brotherhood, and other verses. London: G. Allen, 1896. *''Perdita: A sonnet record''. Sydney: G. Robertson, 1896. *''Sweetheart Mine: Lyrics of love and friendship''. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1897. * Sea and Sky. Melbourne: Lothian, 1908. * The Burning Marl. Melbourne: Fellowship, 1919. * Swags up! London: J.M. Dent, 1928. Plays *''Tomorrow: A dramatic sketch of the character and environment of Robert Greene''. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1910. *''So Long, Mick!'' Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1910. *''The Temple on the Hill: A mask''. Sydney: Australasian Medical, 1928. Short fiction * Knocking Round. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1930. Non-fiction * Landlopers: The tale of a drifting travel, and the quest of pardon and peace. Sydney: W. Brooks, 1899. *''Elizabethan Drama: Notes and studies''. Sydney: W. Brooks, 1909. *''An Address on Henry Lawson: Delivered by Professor J. Le Gay Brereton on 2nd September, 1927, the fifth anniversary of the poet's death''. Waterloo, NSW: Eagle Press, 1927? *''Nathaniel's Accident: Notes on 'Love's Labour's Lost''. Sydney: Australian Publishing, 1929. *''Writings on Elizabethan Drama'' (edited by R.G. Howarth). Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 1948. Edited **Introductions & critical essays in From Blake to Arnold: Selections from English poetry, 1783-1853 (edited with J.P. Pickburn; introductions & critical essays by Christopher Brennan). London: Macmillan, 1900.From Blake to Arnold, selections from English poetry (1783-1853); (1900), Internet Archive. Web, May 15, 2010. *''Shakespeare's Life of Henry the Fifth''. Melbourne: Lothian, 1919. * Henry Lawson, by his Mates (edited with Bertha Lawson). Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1931. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:John Le Gay Brereton 1871-1933, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 16, 2014. See also *List of Australian poets *List of literary critics References * Notes External links ;Poems * "War" * John Le Gay Brereton poems at Poems.md. * John Le Gay Brereton at PoemHunter (73 poems). * John Le Gay Brereton (1871-1933) in the Australian Poetry Library (93 poems). ;About * Brereton, John Le Gay (1871-1933) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Category:1871 births Category:1933 deaths Category:Australian poets Category:People from Sydney Category:People educated at Sydney Grammar School Category:20th-century poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:Australian academics Category:University of Sydney faculty